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I wouldn't quite agree that people will happily give you money for anything that makes their pain less. There is still oboarding friction, possible import issue

I wouldn't quite agree that people will happily give you money for anything that makes their pain less. There is still oboarding friction, possible import issues, fear of vendor lock-in etc. I think it is something that is easy to describe in theory, "ship what people want", "pivot quickly" etc. but the truth is most of us think we have solved a problem with our product but as soon as the first customer says, "I would buy it if you changed all those things", we quickly get stuck between, "product market fit" and "I am not solving your problem so let's find the customer whose problem I am solving" to avoid creating something that only customer wants.

onion2k 4y ago
There is still oboarding friction, possible import issues, fear of vendor lock-in etc. My point isn't really about the customer - it's about the startup, and the belief that you'll get to where you want to be eventually. Every single reason a founder can come up with not to be out there selling like "The product isn't finished", "It needs feature X", "It's not fast enough", "It needs better design", etc is wrong. No matter how bad your product is, if it's enough to solve the problem a bit then someone will pay for it. Any improvements you can make after that just increases the number of people who'll buy. The fun game of running a startup is to make sure you're finding enough customers to make enough money to pay for building new things that enables you to find more customers, until you're big enough to either be self-sustaining or exit.
- codingdave 4y ago
  > My point isn't really about the customer - it's about the startup, Startups are about the customer. Every single thing we do, whether related to tech or not, is to find and satisfy a customer's need in order to make it worth their while to give us money for our product. I think we agree on that, but if you ever disconnect your perspective or decisions from the customer, you open yourself up to going off-track.
- wildmanx 4y ago
  > Every single reason a founder can come up with not to be out there selling like "The product isn't finished", "It needs feature X", "It's not fast enough", "It needs better design", etc is wrong. But don't you run the risk of some potential customer coming, trying it, deciding it's crap, moving on, and now they are burned for the foreseeable future? So, once your product isn't that crap anymore, they won't come back try again, since your brand is burned and has built a "that's crap" reputation?
  - altdataseller 4y ago
    This is a problem in a market where they are maybe a small # of potential customers (ie. a niche market like 'satellite imagery data'), but not if your market is the Fortune 10K
cushychicken 4y ago
>I wouldn't quite agree that people will happily give you money for anything that makes their pain less. I think OP's point is that the customer is a better judge of "worth" in the sense of money spent vs pain reduced than you are. It's impossible to do that worth test yourself. Expose to what you make to customers; see if they vote with their dollars.

onion2k 4y ago

There is still oboarding friction, possible import issues, fear of vendor lock-in etc. My point isn't really about the customer - it's about the startup, and the belief that you'll get to where you want to be eventually. Every single reason a founder can come up with not to be out there selling like "The product isn't finished", "It needs feature X", "It's not fast enough", "It needs better design", etc is wrong. No matter how bad your product is, if it's enough to solve the problem a bit then someone will pay for it. Any improvements you can make after that just increases the number of people who'll buy. The fun game of running a startup is to make sure you're finding enough customers to make enough money to pay for building new things that enables you to find more customers, until you're big enough to either be self-sustaining or exit.

codingdave 4y ago
> My point isn't really about the customer - it's about the startup, Startups are about the customer. Every single thing we do, whether related to tech or not, is to find and satisfy a customer's need in order to make it worth their while to give us money for our product. I think we agree on that, but if you ever disconnect your perspective or decisions from the customer, you open yourself up to going off-track.
wildmanx 4y ago
> Every single reason a founder can come up with not to be out there selling like "The product isn't finished", "It needs feature X", "It's not fast enough", "It needs better design", etc is wrong. But don't you run the risk of some potential customer coming, trying it, deciding it's crap, moving on, and now they are burned for the foreseeable future? So, once your product isn't that crap anymore, they won't come back try again, since your brand is burned and has built a "that's crap" reputation?
- altdataseller 4y ago
  This is a problem in a market where they are maybe a small # of potential customers (ie. a niche market like 'satellite imagery data'), but not if your market is the Fortune 10K

cushychicken 4y ago

>I wouldn't quite agree that people will happily give you money for anything that makes their pain less. I think OP's point is that the customer is a better judge of "worth" in the sense of money spent vs pain reduced than you are. It's impossible to do that worth test yourself. Expose to what you make to customers; see if they vote with their dollars.